S.A. Baldus: editor and lecturer

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S. A. BALDUS, Editor and Lecturer
Management ofThe Mutual Lyceum BureauFrank A. Morgan, Manager640 Orchestra Bldg.Chicago



A Character Sketch of S. A. Baldus,
Editor and Lecturer
By Charles Phillips, Editor of The Monitor (San Francisco).

MR. BALDUS needs no introduction.  As managing editor of one of the most influential home journals, he is known in hundreds of thousands of homes — and, what is more, favorably known.  Through years of hard and conscientious work in the cause of Catholic journalism, he has established for himself a national reputation, which has placed him among the foremost editors of the country.  His editorial style is distinctive, vivid and virile.  He has never learned the trick of ambiguous or superfluous words.  His meaning is always clear.  In his utterances he is guided by keen logic and sound sense.  He has zeal and intensity, and that gift rare among editors — the candid good humor of a wise man.  In short, sincerity is the key-note of his writing — all of his work.  It is not too much praise to say that when the history of Catholic journalism in America will be written, the name of S. A. Baldus will rank among the ablest of that army of men whose lives have been devoted to one of the greatest works of Religion.

It is only during the past few years that Mr. Baldus has been in a position to devote some of his time to lecture work, but in this short period he has achieved a distinction shared by no other platform talker.  Earnestness, fear-lessness, candor, common sense, and a pleasing personality are the elements with which he impresses himself and his subject indelibly on his audience.  His viewpoint, as well as the manner of treatment of his subject, are strikingly original.  His conclusions are forceful and to point.  He is a man with a message.  His training on the stage, playing important character roles with Mme.  Rhea, has moreover given him a thorough knowledge of the dramatic art and the confidence to appear at his best before an audience.



LECTURE SUBJECTS

The Seven Ages
THE SEVEN AGES deals with the vital subjects — children, love, courtship, marriage, divorce, and that worse social evil — the divorce that exists in the home.  The lecturer contends that for every couple seeking release from marital woes there are at least five couples living, until death do them part, on the borderland of divorce.  He maintains that there is a simple remedy for the unhappiness that exists in many homes.  The best evidence of the great value of his lecture is found in the fact that the lecturer has been privately thanked a number of times for the helpful and wholesome suggestions contained in his address.  It is a beautiful and inspiring lecture that always pleases a mixed audience.


Mr. S. A. Baldus, managing editor of EXTENSION Magazine, who delivered his lecture, The Seven Ages, at the Knights of Columbus clubhouse, this city, on Wednesday evening of last week, is as pleasing on the rostrum as he is in the sanctum.  He has a happy faculty of gliding smoothly over the rough places and gilding unsavory truths with unoffending polish.—
The Catholic Register, Kansas City. Mo.



The Fallacy of Woman's Suffrage
MR. BALDUS has been called the most courageous man in the city of Chicago for having dared to go before the suffrage organizations and audiences composed largely of sympathizers with the suffrage cause, to discuss The Fallacy of Woman Suffrage. This he does without mincing of words or aims, with a directness surprising in its candor, and a completeness overwhelming in its force.  With an insistence that leaves no escape from his logic, he points out that the home of to-day stands in greater need of woman's refining influence than the polls.  The lecture has the charm of novelty.  It presents the woman suffrage question in an entirely new light.  Even those who do not agree with Mr. Baldus admit that his address is meaty and full of food for serious thought.



An Hour with a Catholic Journalist
THIS is more in the nature of a heart-to-heart talk than a formal lecture.  Mr. Baldus knows his subject and speaks from the fulness of an experience extending over a period of more than ten years of activity in the field of Catholic journalism.  He discusses Catholic literature, books, authors and publishers; Catholic journalism — monthly magazines, weekly papers, college, parish and devotional publications, and even that Catholic daily, Catholic editors and their methods, contributors and their remuneration, etc.; An hour with a Catholic Journalist will interest and please a Catholic audience of men and women.  It is especially stimulating to students in Catholic colleges, academies and universities.


Those who were in attendance at the last meeting of De Soto Council will agree that a pleasant evening was spent in the council chamber.  The lecture by Brother S. A. Baldus, editor of EXTENSION Magazine, was a rare treat, and worth going miles to hear.  Few, if any, are possessed of the facts on this subject as is Brother Baldus.  His address was thought provoking and highly interesting, and we hope that in the near future Brother Baldus will be with us again.—
The Columbian, Chicago.





TESTIMONIALS

Catholic Writers' Guild, Chicago
The address given by Mr. S. A. Baldus, editor of EXTENSION Magazine, at a recent meeting of the Catholic Writers' Guild, was one of the most delightful heard during the year.  To an earnest and impressive delivery, Mr. Baldus adds an original handling of any subject he touches, which never fails to hold the interest of his audience.  The guild members and their friends hope to have the pleasure of hearing him soon again.

ANNIE E. BRADLEY,
Social Chairman, Catholic Writers' Guild.



Catholic Woman's League, Chicago
My Dear Mr. Baldus,—As a member of The Catholic Woman's League, I wish to say to you that it is to be congratulated upon having secured so satisfactory a lecture for its fifteenth anniversary celebration.  The originality of the interpretation of the Seven Ages — the beauty of language, and charm of manner and voice, indeed left nothing to be desired of the speaker, and for the hearer only the hope of a second or third opportunity of being so highly entertained and benefited.

I feel somewhat diffident in sending you my word of commendation, as I realize the limitation of my critical ability, but as one of a great number of pleased auditors I am happy to say my little Thank you.

Most sincerely,
Mrs. JOHN MAC MAHON.



Western Catholic Chautauqua
Among the best of the lecturers in the course of the Western Catholic Chautauqua, for the season of 1909, was S. A. Baldus, of the editorial staff of the EXTENSION Magazine.  His lecture on The Seven Ages was a happy mingling of wit, wisdom and philosophy, couched in terms of chaste, yet vigorous English, and interspersed with apt illustrations.  With an easy grace of address and pleasing platform delivery, Mr. Baldus so beguiles the time of his audience as to leave them wishing for more.  To those who wish to be both instructed and entertained, and especially to the lecture-going public, I most heartily recommend him.

JOHN T. KELLY,
Secretary and Manager of the Western Catholic Chautauqua.



De Soto Council, No. 517, K. of C.
Mr. S. A. Baldus' delightful lecture, The Seven Ages, delivered before our Council of Knights of Columbus, a few months ago, held the closest attention of the audience from beginning to end, and I deem it only right to bring his magnificent offering to the notice of other councils contemplating giving a popular lecture this season.  Mr. Baldus is a speaker of remarkable originality and power.  He possesses in an unusual degree what is often called personal magnetism.  He employs none of the tricks of other platform talkers, relying rather to hold the attention of his audience by the quality of persuasiveness and the force of his logic.

WILLIAM E. DILLON,
Lecturer.



Gen. Shields Council, No. 967, K. of C.
General Shields Council, No. 967, Knights of Columbus, flatters itself that it has offered its members and friends during the past few years the highest class of lectures and entertainments procurable.  Among the former, the lecture of Mr. S. A. Baldus, on The Seven Ages, easily ranks first as a pleasing and inspiring talk for an audience composed of men and women.  Without exception, those who had the good fortune to hear Mr. Baldus' lecture, expressed the hope to be able to hear him again on this or any other subject that he may choose to talk on.  Many of the members present declared that it was the best lecture ever delivered under the auspices of our council, and I take great pleasure in endorsing these sentiments.  Mr. Baldus is certainly a man of exceptional oratorical talents, with a magnetic personality.  He held his hearers spellbound.

ANTHONY CZARNECKI,
Grand Knight.



Cincinnati Council, No. 373, K. of C.
My Dear Mr. Baldus,—I trust that your duties in the editorial department of the EXTENSION Magazine will not prevent you from accepting an occasional invitation to lecture before councils of the Knights of Columbus.

I regard the lecture platform as one of the greatest means open to the Knights to promote the influence of their lay apostolate.

I have in my remembrance the beautiful and instructive lecture which you delivered before Cincinnati Council, No. 373, during the time that I was lecturer of the council.  The memory of your magnificent effort on that evening still abides with those of our council who were fortunate enough to be present.

Please inform me what you are in a position to do along these lines.  Let me know if you have written any lectures of late, and the titles.  We shall hope to secure you for at least one lecture before our council here in Cincinnati during the present season.  I am sure the hall will be crowded that evening.

RICHARD CRANE,
Council No. 373, Knights of Columbus.



Bishop Carroll Council, No. 702, K. of C.
My Dear Sir,—As I take great pride in my record as Lecturer of our council, I deem it my duty to let you know officially how much you have assisted me by your splendid effort the other evening.  The members of Bishop Carroll Council will have none but the best, and this exalted taste keeps the Entertainment Committee on the jump.  Your lecture made a deep impression, and was, in a manner, a surprise to them, as its excellence was of a degree never reached by any other effort in our council rooms.  Some of the more public spirited of the members gave splendid commendation of your effort before you left the hall, as you know.  I shall take great pleasure in recommending you to my successor in office in order that we may again have the pleasure of hearing you.

I am, Sir,

JOHN B. READ,
Lecturer.






The Fallacy of Woman Suffrage was the subject of a very able lecture given under the auspices of the Catholic Writers' Guild, in the Y. M. C. A. Auditorium, on Wednesday evening, March 2, by S. A. Baldus, editor of EXTENSION Magazine.  An appreciative audience was in attendance.  The lecture throughout was spiced with clever witticisms, and its more serious treatment of the subject in hand no doubt gave the audience a few new thoughts on the question which is now disturbing European countries and threatening to become a vital issue in our own.—
The Columbian, Chicago.

RECORD-HERALD, CHICAGO, MAY 22, 1910.


Scolded, Give Thanks
Fair Women Applaud Caustic Criticism of Gentler Sex Who Seek the Ballot.



S.A. BALDUS, THE SPEAKER
Before Irish Fellowship Club He Accuses Suffragists as Willing Law-Breakers.

Thoroughly satisfied with being told that they were not fitted for and should not have the ballot, a hundred women completed a unique situation by giving a rising vote of thanks to the man who had addressed them yesterday at the weekly luncheon of the Irish Fellowship Club, at the Hotel La Salle.  And to cap this climax, one of the women in the audience, in a short address, declared she agreed in almost every point with the speaker.

S. A. Baldus, editor of the Catholic Church EXTENSION Magazine, who recently caused an uproar among Chicago suffragists by an attack on them in an address at Association Hall, was the speaker yesterday.  His address was on The Fallacy of Woman Suffrage, and the hundred women who thanked him were in his audience as guests of the Irish Fellowship Club on ladies' day.

Among the stinging remarks made against women ballot-seekers by Mr. Baldus was that anarchist bomb throwers were preferable to hysterical suffragists.  Going farther, the speaker declared that the majority of suffragists held themselves free to break the laws of the country because they have had no voice in their making.



SPEAKS WITH SEVERITY.
Is it for this same reason, he asked, that they have not been consulted m their making, that there is a growing tendency among the suffragists to break the laws of God and nature?  Many suffragists have stated openly that they favor race suicide.  If the story of race suicide could be written truthfully it would show that at least fifteen thousand children are murdered in Chicago every year.  Your statutes provide a penalty of from one to ten years in the penitentiary for every offense of this kind.  If this law could be enforced, think what it would mean.

A favorite theme with the suffragists is freedom of speech, but they seem to think it a crime to say anything against them.  An Eastern divine was called cowardly and ungentlemanly and the President of the United States was hissed for speaking against woman suffrage.  Another argument they make is that all men are created equal.  Is there any equality, economic or social, between the washerwoman who works for a pittance and the woman who spends most of her time traveling abroad?

If it is logical to say women should not obey the laws because they have had no voice in their making, the Democratic party has the biggest complaint in this direction of any class.  If it is logical to say `No tax without representation,' it is also logical to insist `No vote without taxation.'

The big questions in which woman is interested can not be solved through the ballot box.  One is the child labor law.  The pity is that a child labor law should be necessary.  It is class legislation, and this is what class legislation is: When people living in elegant homes make laws for the people in the slums, when women who have never hugged anything holier than a poodledog make laws for women with nursing children, that is class legislation.  The way to remedy child labor is for the wives and daughters of employers to go to them and say that they will do without diamonds and automobiles if better wages are paid the fathers of the working children.



BLAMES THE WOMEN.
The blame for the child-labor evil, for the many divorces, for the white slave traffic, for wayward and criminal children may rest equally with man and woman, but it goes back farther to the father and mother, who are to blame for not educating the children better, and in this the woman is more to blame because the mother has more influence with children.

The one class of labor that has been entirely in woman's hands has been woman servant help, and it is now the lowest in the scale.  It has longer hours and less pay than any other.

Mrs. Mary F. McWhorter, president of the Illinois Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and a national director, is the woman who indorsed Mr. Baldus.



THE IRISH FELLOWSHIP CLUB.
MY DEAR MR. BALDUS,—Your lecture on The Fallacy of Woman Suffrage, which you lately gave before the Irish Fellowship Club, of Chicago, made a decided impression upon the large audience of ladies and gentlemen who had the good fortune to hear it.  I have heard many words of praise for the courage, as well as for the originality you showed in the treatment of that very delicate subject.

You opened up many new lines of thought, and the lessons to he drawn from your lecture are not only educational and instructive generally, but are a liberal contribution to the literature of that particular field of social and political activity.

I would like to see all live clubs and wide-awake societies give their members an opportunity of hearing your splendid lecture.

Very sincerely yours,
PHILIP J. McKENNA, President.